


Sear

by borderlinecritical (skulls_and_stripes)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, F/F, LGBTQ Themes, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Poverty, Slow Burn, in the most literal sense of the word
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22158124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skulls_and_stripes/pseuds/borderlinecritical
Summary: Ruby is a sophomore at Beach City High School, an underfunded school in a poor district. She's often too busy with her current workload to even think beyond the present, caught up in juggling her school life, her part-time job at KFC, and taking care of her sisters. But when she has the chance, she worries endlessly about the future, overwhelmed by the fear of not knowing what she wants to do beyond high school.Sapphire is a quiet, asocial girl who just transferred from Diamond Academy, a prestigious private school that offers its positions to only the wealthy. Nobody knows why she moved, what her interests are, or even who she really is - the only thing anyone knows for sure is that she's offering to tell people's futures by palm reading for five dollars.When Ruby's friends hear about her anxiety about the future, they recommend her to Sapphire, in the hope that it will help her. But Sapphire's readings surprise even the ice queen herself, and Ruby learns some unexpected things about herself - and about Sapphire.
Relationships: Ruby/Sapphire (Steven Universe)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

She’s barely even surprised when a paper aeroplane hits her in the back of the head.

Most children grow out of that habit halfway through elementary school, but some oddness is to be expected here. It’s the third thing to hit her in the back of the head today -- the first was a dodgeball in PE, thankfully not thrown very hard, and the second was half a ham and cheese sandwich in biology class. She’s not entirely sure how that one happened. 

Like with most schools, students aren’t allowed to throw paper aeroplanes at her in the middle of math class, nor are they allowed to throw half a ham and cheese sandwich at her in biology class. There are no specific rules against the throwing of those specific items at her in particular, but she assumes it should be covered by a general “no violence” rule, or a more specific “no throwing things except in PE” rule.

Normally, this would be the point in time when she turns around and asks the offender to stop throwing paper aeroplanes at her. But what’s the point? Acknowledging how annoying they are will only motivate them further, and it’s not as though the underpaid teachers will have the energy to give them any consequence, save for perhaps a “don’t do that”.

Ruby flings the aeroplane back behind her carelessly and adjusts the large red headband keeping her afro in place. Trying to regain her focus, she stares at the whiteboard, but her few minutes of distraction has already caused the teacher to move on and leave her in the dust.

God damn it.

She could tell from the moment she first saw her schedule that having math last period would end up being awful. She’s never considered herself any sort of great deducer or predictor, but it didn’t exactly take a rocket scientist to figure out that she would spend week after week stumbling into her last class of the day exhausted, mentally and physically, and spend most of the lesson waiting for the minutes to tick by, staring out the window and hoping the teacher fails to notice her inattention.

She glances out the window. She’s seen the view from this classroom enough times to easily recognize the familiar scenery -- there’s the tree right outside, and then the football court, and beyond that the school fence. Across the road from there is the bizarrely-named Fish Stew Pizza along with other family businesses, as well as some more commercial fast food restaurants, including the KFC she works for. It’s hard to see the details today, though, since the scenery is blurred by the rain droplets collecting on the glass.

She was never a fan of water, but she’s not too upset about the weather, since her friend Amethyst lives conveniently close to her and will be able to get her a lift home. Hopefully. 

She checks her phone under the table again. Her lock screen is a gradient with orange at the top and pink at the bottom, both fading toward a white in the middle. She has no notifications, and in white letters, the time is displayed as 2:15PM toward the top of the screen.

On the bright side, school ends in fifteen minutes. On the dark side, the last time she checked it was 2:14.

Time goes very slowly in math class.

She could try to pay attention, yes, but what would be the point? This teacher’s teaching style simply doesn’t mesh with her learning style, and she knows from experience that he refuses to change. It’s easier for her to just join in with Peridot and Pearl when everyone’s cramming before exams.

Still, it’s boring as hell.

She doesn’t dare use her phone, since the last time she was caught with it she was almost suspended, and she can’t even talk to a friend to pass the time -- she used to sit with Amethyst, but an incident involving a small fire and several live ladybugs led to them being separated, though that was just the last straw in a long line of lectures and detentions for talking too much.

She could doodle in the back of her book, she supposes, but she’s no artist. She tries anyway, out of boredom. She draws a five-pointed star, which is uneven, then an oversimplified cartoony face, with uneven eyes and poor colouring, and then draws a square, which is somehow wrong. 

What’s wrong with the square? Fucked if she knows. 

She checks the time. It’s 2:18. 

This is going to be a long class.

* * *

When the bell finally rings, she’s quick to shove her belongings into her bag and jump out of her seat. As the class empties, she makes her way toward the dark-skinned girl who remains in the classroom.

Amethyst is short, almost inhumanly so -- shorter than Ruby herself, which is saying something. In a blatant disregard of dress code rules, which dictate for unknown reasons that shoulders must be covered at all times, she’s wearing an oversized grey tank top and black tights with several holes in them. Her messy knee-length hair is dyed a shade of lavender, and she’s staring at her phone with an annoyed look.

“Dad’s ignoring my texts,” she explains. “Lemme call him quickly.”

She calls her father, and Ruby checks her phone to pass the time. As expected, she has no notifications, it’s 2:31PM, and there’s nothing of interest she can do. Luckily, the phone call is quick.

Unluckily, as soon as she hangs up Amethyst is groaning, and Ruby doubts it will be good.

“You will not believe this,” she begins as she starts walking out of the classroom, Ruby following right behind her. “The asshole’s at work!”

Ruby raises an eyebrow. “He has a job?”

“Apparently.”

“Where?”

“Fucked if I know!” She kicks a nearby wall in frustration. “For the last, like, forty years he’s been mooching off my mom -- I don’t even know what kept him alive in the past five years after the breakup -- and now when I need him, he’s suddenly at work?! Dick.”

Ruby frowns, then tries to find a solution. “I’m guessing your sister can’t pick us up?”

“Nope, she’s with Lapis.” She frowns. “Those two are fucking awful for each other.”

“What about Pearl?” 

“Dance practice.”

“And Peri?”

“I asked her before Dad. She’s got a shift right after school, barely has time to get herself home.”

“She works?” At Amethyst’s nod, she continues. “McDonald’s or KFC?”

“McDonald’s, the traitor. KFC is way better.”

“Have they responded to your application yet?”

“Not yet, but it’s only been a couple days.” Amethyst frowns as they make their way out of the school, the rain hitting their skin. “Do you have Uber of Lyft on your phone?”

“Nope. You got an umbrella, at least?”

“Why would I bring an umbrella if I thought I was getting a lift?!” She kicks a nearby tree in frustration, and some water collected by the leaves falls on her head. She groans. “I guess we’ll have to walk.”

“Dammit, I’m working tonight.” 

Amethyst raises an eyebrow. “And?”

“And I have to shower before work! You think I want to be in the rain and then shower? It’s like double showering!”

Amethyst laughs. “What is up with your weird water thing?”

“It’s not weird,” snaps Ruby, crossing her arms and then immediately uncrossing them to gesture wildly and angrily. “It’s just that --” Her eyes widen. “Ah shit, I just remembered.”

“What?”

“I’ll have to walk to work in the rain too, dammit!”

“And you worried about ‘double showering’ before that?” snickers Amethyst. “Can’t you get your shift covered?”

“Eh, probably. I heard Lapis wants to take more shifts. But, uh…” She checks the time on her phone. “I’d have to ask for it to be covered, like, right now. Do you have data?”

Amethyst groans. “Fine, I’ll turn my hotspot on, but you’d better give me free food one of these days!”

“I keep telling you, that’s not allowed! I can get you a ten per cent discount but that’s it.”

“Eh, close enough.”

Ruby asks for her shift to be covered and Amethyst turns off her hotspot. The rain grows heavier.

It’s going to be a long walk.


	2. Chapter 2

As always, the water is near boiling.

Well, perhaps not literally -- she’s quite sure she would have gotten severe burns by now if the water was that hot every time she took a shower -- but it certainly feels that way. Still, she lets the water scald her, taking a few moments to get used to the heat. The plumbing in this house is dodgy, as it is with most houses in the area, and she’d take boiling over freezing any day.

She showers quickly but efficiently, making sure to clean off the layer of sweat from her earlier workout and wash her hair thoroughly, and then turns off the water. She wraps a red towel around her body and steps out of the shower, dripping on the floor as she dashes to her bedroom to get dressed.

She dries herself off and changes into her work uniform -- a pair of simple black trousers, a polo T-shirt with the KFC logo on it, and steel cap boots, which are necessary for safety reasons, though she’s not quite sure what the dangers are at KFC. She decides to put on a red and black flannel over the uniform, just to keep her warm on the way there and back.

She dries her hair and ties it into a bun, then checks the time. It’s 3:15, so she still has a bit of time to waste before she needs to go. Her shift starts at four, and it only takes a little under half an hour to get there, so there’s no need to leave for another fifteen minutes. 

“When are you leaving?”

She groans internally. That’s the voice of Scarlett, one of her two sisters -- she was born in a set of identical triplets, though honestly it often feels more like she’s the older sister to a pair of twins. Scarlett and Crimson are constantly bickering, and Ruby’s just … there. Not quite on the same level as them, not quite able to connect with her sisters like they can with each other.

“I’ll go at four-thirty,” she answers. 

“And you’ll be home by midnight?”

“My shift ends at eleven, so yeah.”

“Okay, have fun.”

Scarlett leaves, and Ruby checks the time. 3:17. With thirteen minutes to go before it’s time to leave, she has time to waste but not enough time to start doing anything. Her only option is to pace around in her room, worrying endlessly about the shift.

She’s been doing this for the better part of a year now. She’ll be fine, right? But she can’t tune out the lingering voice that says that eventually her managers will realise their mistake in hiring her. She’ll be fired soon, of course she will -- she’s too loud and anxious and too slow at the burger station and honestly, it’s just luck that she’s still working there at all.

Soon her luck will run out. 

What’s she going to do when she inevitably gets fired? How will she face her family with the knowledge that she failed at even the simplest of jobs? Even if she doesn’t get fired, she can’t exactly stay at KFC forever. But what else can she do? She has no passions that can be easily translated into a career, no interest in anything beyond high school.

Perhaps she’s just destined to be an unemployed, lazy idiot her whole life.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Uh, Rubes?” asks Crimson. “You were leaving at four-thirty, right? Cause it’s twenty-nine past now.”

With a sigh, Ruby buttons up her flannel to protect against the wind and grabs a twenty-dollar bill from her desk to pay for a taxi -- no way she’s walking home at eleven PM, not in the hellhole that is Beach City. Waving to her parents and sisters on her way out, she heads to work.

* * *

She wouldn’t say front counter is her favourite part of working at KFC.

She wouldn’t say it’s her least favourite, either. That place in her heart belongs firmly to the annoying hellhole that is the burger station. In all honesty, her favourite part of working there is probably the part where she gets paid.

But front counter has a special brand of irritating. The type of irritating where every other customer wants a goddamned Giant Feat and her rainbow-haired coworker won’t stop making puns about how it’s a pleasure doing _Bismuth_ with you.

When a Raspberry Freeze shows up on the screen, she waits expectantly for more items to appear. After all, KFC stands for Kentucky Fried _Chicken_ , not Kentucky Fried Raspberry Freeze. Who goes to KFC if they only want to have a Raspberry Freeze? Still, as no items show up, she’s forced to accept that this is one of those annoying customers that just goes to KFC for a goddamned Raspberry Freeze.

She makes the raspberry freeze and goes to the pick up window. “Number four-two-seven?”

The woman that takes the order is a young girl, likely a high school student like Ruby herself. She’s unusually short, and wearing an elegant blue dress. It matches her hair, which is dyed a shade of pale blue, and cascades down her back in elegant waves. Her eyes are hidden by her overgrown fringe, but her mouth is unmoving and stoic.

“Thank you,” she says politely.

She takes a seat out of Ruby’s sight, leaving her with a peculiar sensation. A wave of deja vu. And, of course, the warmness in her face that happens every time a notorious useless lesbian is forced to serve a cute girl.

“Pleasure doing Bismuth with you!” calls Bismuth after the girl, even though the girl probably didn’t even see Bismuth’s nametag. 

For once, Ruby doesn’t have it in her to be annoyed at the pun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: the number of Sapphire's order (427) is what you get when you put GAR, the first three letters of Garnet, into a phone keypad. (it would have been a better joke if the number was 427638 but, you know, 3 digit limit)
> 
> more importantly: Scarlett and Crimson are the human versions of the two ruby guards that Ruby is with in The Answer! They're pretty minor characters, I just wanted to include them because barely any human AUs feature them. also I wanted Ruby to have siblings but it seemed impossible to make every ruby in the show her sister (cause you know, that would be at least 5 for the ruby squad, a few for Nanufua's guards in su:f, and the guards in The Answer) but I didn't want to just pick a bunch of random rubies that have no real in-show connection to her


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: idk how accurate ruby's work is? it's pretty accurate to my experience of working at KFC but I'm in Australia. this fic presumably takes place in America just because that's where the original show takes place.

Skinny, pale fingers brush along the paper, smoothing out any creases as their owner tries in vain to understand it. A thin girl with piercing blue eyes and red hair chopped into a pixie cut frowns, staring at her notes and trying to make sense of the conversation. “No, sorry, I still don’t have a clue what you’re on about.”

“You don’t know what a zinger burger is?!” chokes Ruby.

Pearl blushes. “You know I don’t really like fast food.”

It’s Amethyst, sitting next to Pearl and opposite Ruby at the table, who steps in to help. “It’s just a burger you can get at KFC. Speaking of which,” she adds, checking her phone. “They still haven’t responded to my application.”

“They’re not hiring yet but you might get a response next week,” says Bismuth. “Rose said she might want to look at getting more team members since Biggs is moving away.”

A small, nasally voice pipes up from the corner of the table. “Rose?” The speaker is the shortest of the group -- and with Amethyst and Ruby also at the table, that’s really saying something -- with pale skin and messy blonde hair. She adjusts her yellow-tinted glasses, drawing up her green hood to protect against the cold.

“Rose,” begins Pearl, standing up dramatically. “Is the single most amazing woman I have ever met!”

“Eh, she’s kinda bitchy,” interrupts Bismuth. This is ignored. 

“We used to take ballet classes together on weekends at the same studio,” continues Pearl. “She stopped after she graduated high school, but we still keep in touch.”

“Anyone else think that’s kinda weird?” asks Amethyst. “Y’know, that you’re obviously into her, and she’s kinda encouraging it even though she’s a fully grown adult?”

“I am not into her!” protests Pearl indignantly. “I just admire her for her incredible dance abilities. Oh, and it must be so difficult to manage a restaurant! Though I can’t help but wish she would choose a less vulgar place to eat…”

“She’s super strict at work,” says Bismuth. “Gets super pissed over the tiniest bullshit.”

“Does it matter whether she’s a saint or a bitch?” asks Amethyst. “Just do me a favour, P, and put in a good word for me the next time you see her.”

Ruby groans in frustration. “Amethyst, I swear, I’ll spend hours telling Rose about how you’re an amazing student if you promise to come in on my next shift and do the GES.”

“GES?” asks Pearl.

“Guest Experience Survey,” explains Bismuth. “Basically you can go online to fill out a survey based on how good the service was. And the person who gets the most compliments can get prizes.”

“Ooh, free stuff!” says Amethyst, perking up in her seat.

“What sort of prizes?” asks Peridot.

“Gift cards, usually. Sometimes socks or water bottles with drumsticks on them.”

“More importantly,” interrupts Ruby. “if you get compliments, Rose likes you. And if Rose likes you, you don’t get fired. And if you don’t get fired, you get promoted.”

Amethyst raises an eyebrow. “Promoted? What, you want to be a goddamn KFC manager?”

Ruby blushes. “Well, I think I’d have to be a shift supervisor first, but…” She sighs. “I dunno, man. I have no idea what I want to do for a career. If I stay at KFC, at least I’ve got something. Otherwise, I dunno, I’ll probably end up living with my parents forever.”

“You’re not supposed to know what you want to do for a career,” says Pearl. “You’re only a sophomore. There’s plenty of time to figure it out.”

“Yeah, except I’ve gotta figure out how the fuck I’m paying off student loans if I wanna go to college. And if I want to do something that I don’t need a degree for, I’d better start looking for an apprenticeship or whatever now, or I’m just gonna turn eighteen and realise I’m totally fucked.”

“Eh,” says Amethyst, waving her hand dismissively. “You can burn that bridge when you get to it.”

“I have to agree with Amethyst,” agrees Peridot. “You worry too much about the future.”

“Did someone say something about the future?”

The group looks up. A skinny blue-haired girl of average height has made her way over to them, resting a hand on Peridot’s shoulder in a way that doesn’t quite seem platonic. She’s wearing a blue crop top in a blatant violation of dress code rules, along with a flowing blue skirt. She removes Peridot’s hood and starts playing with her hair, prompting a blush from the shorter girl.

Amethyst glares. “Lapis! Dude, are you cheating on my sister?”

“Eh, I’m planning on breaking up with her when I can. We’re fucking awful for each other.”

“You can say that again.”

“Yeah. Besides, it’s fine if I mess with Peri a little, since Jas is obviously in love with Rose.”

Bismuth groans. “Why is everyone in love with my manager?” Ignoring Pearl’s indignant protests, she continues, “And didn’t Jas get fired, like, three months ago? Is she seriously still into Rose?”

“Yeah, she’s crazy like that.” Lapis clears her throat. “Anyway, you guys were talking about the future, right?”

“Yeah,” sighs Ruby. “I have no idea what I’m gonna do when I’m outta high school. I want to get out of this shithole of a city but I have no idea how, y’know?”

“Well, you’re in luck. There’s this new girl that transferred from Diamond Academy.”

Ruby raises an eyebrow. The thing is, students _don’t_ transfer from Diamond Academy. It simply does not happen. Diamond Academy is the most prestigious, expensive high school that’s even close to the hellhole that is Beach City. Beach City High School is underfunded, mocked by other schools, and generally considered the worst place you can go -- especially if you’re rich.

Rich kids don’t move to Beach City.

“Why?” asks Pearl.

“Not a clue,” says Lapis. “I think her name’s Sapphire, she’s in my PE class. Nobody really knows much about her -- she’s really quiet. And -- here’s the cool part -- she does palm readings.”

“Seriously?” says Amethyst, unimpressed.

“Yeah, she reckons she can tell the future for five bucks.”

“You might want to take that with a grain of salt,” says Bismuth.

“Eh, don’t be so sure. I decided to do one just for the hell of it, since I had a bit of extra money from covering Ruby’s shift last week, and she said I was going to be betrayed by someone I loved and I should be on the lookout for falling rocks. And then the next day, Jas threw a rock at me.”

“Are you okay?” asks Pearl. This is ignored.

“I mean, that is kinda typical of J,” says Amethyst. “It’s probably just a fluke.”

Pearl and Peridot immediately start their ramblings about how palm readings have been thoroughly debunked, about how it’s scientifically impossible, about how it’s just a scam. Bismuth and Amethyst look on with apprehension. Ruby thinks it over, then gives Lapis a determined grin.

“Take me to her.”


End file.
